701-566-9300Late on Friday afternoon in House Appropriations, a motion was made by Representative Streyle to eliminate any reference to SBARE, (State Board of Agricultural Research and Education) which is chaired by Mike Beltz of Hillsboro. SBARE was established by the Legislature in 1997 to be responsible for policy and budgeting for the ND Ag Experiment Station and later for NDSU Extension Service. More information (as one would expect) is easily available on their website. The motion failed 9-8 with three members not present. Some think that if the entire committee was there, it would have passed. Such an animosity towards SBARE might be attributable to a general lack of appreciation for the farming community. Today in the Forum is an article about the Clay-Wilkin Soybean Growers Association holding public events because they fear the disconnect between our increasingly urban residents not understanding where their food comes from. Interestingly, I attended one of NDSU Extension’s outreach sessions in 2015 to take the pulse of North Dakotan’s views and one of the major categories was the disconnect from agricultural producers.
